EAD, not EET

It tickled my funny bone, but as many things that do, it was also fairly obscure. I'm talking about the name of my blog Boxwood Beadle, which has several layers of meaning for me. My sister Tina pointed out that maybe I ought to address that.

When I was about thirteen years old, my mother was assigned to write an article about Longwood Gardens in Pennyslvania. A well known and beautifully manicured topiary garden, its lush, dark green, sculpted boxwood bushes took many forms from simply towering columnar hedges to smaller, ankle brushing animal form creations among the lawns. The day we went, likely a hot summer day since my siblings and I were along for the ride, the boxwoods were dripping with japanese beetles. Time has sculpted my memory of the day to focus on the horrific experience of regularly shaking the shimmering beasts out of my unfashionable, thrift store pants cuffs as we made our winding way through the windless, humid garden. This, coupled with the strong, cat-piss aroma of the boxwoods, gave me a lifetime distaste for boxwoods of any form, proudly sculpted or otherwise.

A few days ago, while I was contemplating a title for this blog, I wanted to reference my current home, so looked up the word boxwood (ironically, our sidestreet's name.) Up came a lovely, red and black insect called the boxwood beetle, which apparently is completely harmless, except to boxwoods. Aha! That appealed to me. From there, I recalled from somewhere deep in my mind the archaic word beadle, which means herald, so there I had it; Boxwood Beadle.

.